Bessemer judge juggling 2 capital murder trials in his court Monday

BESSEMER, Alabama - Monday is shaping up to be a busy day for Bessemer Cutoff Assistant District Attorney Jill Ganus Veitch and Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge David Hobdy.

Within a matter of a few hours Veitch is expected to make closing statements in one capital murder trial and then present opening arguments in another unrelated one - in the same courtroom, before the same judge (Hobdy), but with different juries.

On Friday, Jefferson County Medical Examiner Dr. Greg Davis testified that the boy's death was a homicide, based on an autopsy performed by Dr. Robert Brissie, who died in November. Defense experts, however, said the boy's death was caused by an accidental fall several days earlier.

After both the prosecution and defense rested their cases,
Hobdy told the jurors to return at 10:30 a.m. Monday to hear closing
statements and to begin their deliberations.

Veitch and Assistant Jefferson County District Attorney Leslie Schiffman are to each make closing statements in the Coleman case. Defense attorneys Yusuf Salim Olufemi and Ed Tumlin represent Coleman.

After Hobdy sends jurors back into the jury room to deliberate in the Coleman case, he will bring into his courtroom another jury that has been waiting a month to hear opening arguments in the capital murder trial of Antonio Burns.

The jury in the Burns case, the jury of 14 - including two alternates - had been selected Feb. 10 but opening statements and testimony had to be delayed twice, first by the weather and then again when Veitch had emergency oral surgery and a key witness couldn't make it because of a death in his family.

Veitch plans to make opening statements in the Burns case. Assistant District Attorney James Butler is also prosecuting the case. Burns is represented by attorneys Matthew Gosney and Tommy
Tucker.